FreedomWorks’ Kibbe: New Year’s Day tax ‘massacre’ is ‘gift that keeps giving’

The fiscal cliff deal cut in the wee hours of New Year’s Day was a late Christmas present, according to FreedomWorks’ Matt Kibbe, whose tea party group plans to capitalize on what he called a tax “massacre” heading into the 2014 midterm elections.

“Our sense is that the New Year’s Day massacre is … unfortunately, is going to be a gift that keeps giving,” Kibbe told The Daily Caller in a phone interview.

“I think, whether we like it or not, this constant budget crisis — which I think is by design — is going to continue to define the congressional debate all the way up until the 2014 election,” he continued.

“And we view each of these failures … as opportunities to educate the American public on the gross irresponsibility of the representation in Washington,” Kibbe said, describing it as “a teaching moment for America on exactly how not to do things.”

FreedomWorks, he said, will focus on educating the public about why the fiscal cliff deal was bad politics and bad policy.

“Just educating people on how the budget process is supposed to work and why it is that these midnight deals behind closed doors cut between [Kentucky Republican] Senator [Mitch] McConnell and [Vice President] Joe Biden is such a fundamental corruption of honest government,” Kibbe said.

Kibbe added that he believes the process upset people almost as much as the deal’s details.

“You know the tea party was born out of the way that Wall Street was bailed out behind closed doors at the last minute … as opposed to some open, transparent conversation that the American people could be part of,” Kibbe said. “Since they are the shareholders, the people who foot the bill for these things, it seems only right that they would be allowed to participate in that conversation.”